Haruno Sakura
Sakura Haruno (春野サクラ, Haruno Sakura) is a kunoichi of Konohagakure. She is appointed as a member of Team Kakashi , but quickly finds herself ill-prepared for the duties of a ninja and the complications of her team-mates' lives. By training under her master, Tsunade, she becomes a strong kunoichi and an excellent medical-nin, capable of facing the challenges of life as a ninja, as well as help and protect her friends and loved ones when they need her. During the Fourth Shinobi War, Sakura proves to be an extraordinary kunoichi, healing thousands of shinobi in the battlefield and assisting on the defeat of the likes of Uchiha Madara , Uchiha Obito and Ōtsutsuki Kaguya. After the war, Sakura trained the art of senjutsu on the Shikkotsu Forest, being able to activate Slug Sage Mode , dramatically enhancing her abilities such as physical strength and speed. Years after the war, she becomes the head of medical-nin in Konoha and forms her own family with Uzumaki Naruto. Background During her early childhood years in the Academy, Sakura was frequently bullied by others due to her large forehead. To try and combat this, Sakura used her fringe to hide her forehead, fuelling the other children's teasing by indicating she was sensitive about it. Yamanaka Ino, realising this, helped Sakura by giving her a red ribbon that she used as a way of drawing attention to the cuter features of her forehead, which helped Sakura overcome her insecurity. The two became best friends and Sakura grew more confident, developing her own unique personality under Ino's guidance. A while later, Sakura and Ino got closer to Senju Haru at the Academy, when they were put into a group for a school work together. The three quickly became very close friends and were always together. At the time, the three made a promise that they'd always be together, simbolizing the friendship between the trio. They would always go to each others houses to play, train or just eat lunch together. One day about five years ago while searching for Ino to have lunch with, she spotted her, along with Nara Shikamaru and Akimichi Chōji stealing bits of food from others. Curious as to what they were doing, she followed them, discovering that they were bringing the food to a mysterious young child named Yota . Later, despite her genuine appreciation for Ino's friendship, Sakura felt that she was living in Ino's shadow and longed to prove herself as Ino's equal. When Sakura found out that Ino also had a crush on Uchiha Sasuke, Sakura ended their friendship so that they could compete for Sasuke's love, not realizing how that would hurt her friend who's always been there for her, thus beginning a bitter rivalry between the two, which also ended later when Sakura apologized to Ino and they reconcealed. Personality As a child, Sakura was insecure and highly self-conscious about her large forehead, covering it up with her bangs. It was not until she met Ino, whom defended her from bullies and became her best friend, did she become more self-confident. However, while Sakura was noted as being an honour student for her scholastic intelligence in the Academy, she became narcissistic as she was more interested in her appearance and Sasuke as opposed to practising her ninja skills. Because of this, she found Uzumaki Naruto's advances and attempts to gain her attention irksome, calling him childish and foolish, citing his lack of a family as being a reason he was such an annoyance to everyone in the village, not realising that Naruto had feelings for her too. Sasuke pointed out that this is because Sakura has never experienced loss in her life and thus could not understand himself or Naruto, prompting Sakura to look at things from Naruto's perspective in an effort to understand her teammates. Over time, Sakura developed a mutual friendship with her teammates throughout the series. By Part II, Sakura had matured and become far less self-centred. After learning the hardships Naruto was putting himself through, with the tailed beast Kurama, Akatsuki, and his promise to her to bring Sasuke back to the village, Sakura became very protective of Naruto, hoping to help overcome these obstacles and achieve his dreams. Due to their time spent together as Team 7, they develop a deep friendship that mirrors their Sannin masters, though Naruto's feelings towards Sakura were unreciprocated due to her being in love with Sasuke instead at the time. When Sasuke had become too large a threat to bring home, Sakura first tried to save Naruto from the burden of his promise by proclaiming her love for him instead of Sasuke, though Naruto didn't believe her. At her core, Sakura is compassionate, determined, and courageous, willing to sacrifice herself and combat those she knows to be superior to her to defend her team. Sakura does not back down from a fight, noting that she inherited her master's contempt for losing. By the Fourth Shinobi World War, she helped raised the morale of the army by reminding them that Naruto was fighting for the army he saw as comrades, and when Naruto had Kurama extracted from his body, she went through great lengths to keep him alive, even though her chakra reserve was almost all consumed, swearing she would not let him die when he was close to seeing his dreams. As time went on and Sasuke became an increasingly more dangerous criminal, Sakura recognised that Sasuke could not returned to Konoha, and although she was saddened and distraught at the notion that he had to be killed by Konoha ninja to prevent a war between nations, she decided to do it herself, to prevent him from falling even lower. In the end, she couldn't bring herself to bring him and after seeing Naruto's determination to bring Sasuke back, she put all her faith in them, and trusted that Team Seven could be together again. Sakura has changed a lot since her childhood and her early genin days, regretting many of the decisions she took back then, most of them driven by her superficial love towards Sasuke. She still feelt remorse for having driven Ino away, after she did so much for her when they were children, because of her juvenile feelings for a boy she barely knew back then, that being aggravated on the times in which Haru would scold her for what she did. She also loathed herself for also trying to drive Naruto away in the beginning, realizing that her feelings towards Sasuke were moving her apart from the people who cared about her the most. Moved by such regretful feelings, Sakura wholeheartedly apologizes to Ino and the two of them go back to being very close friends, just how it used to be. Inner Sakura A significant trait of Sakura's personality is her brashness. In Part I, these were turned inwardly, in the form of "Inner Sakura" (内なるサクラ, Uchi Naru Sakura) — a manifestation of her inner emotions. In addition to comic relief, Inner Sakura represents Sakura's actual opinion on things when she outwardly remains calm, collected, or reserved. Inner Sakura's appearances are typically marked by an exclamation of "Shānnarō!" (しゃーんなろー) — a phrase which has no literal meaning, but is usually translated as "Hell yeah!", "Hell no!", or "Damn it!", depending on the situation. Inner Sakura is unique as it is in a way a second will within Sakura's mind. When Ino used the Mind Body Switch Technique on her, Inner Sakura was able to repel the user from her body, suggesting that Sakura has a split personality, consisting of the "Inner Sakura" and her normal personality. Although she appears quite frequently at the start of the series, after her apprenticeship started with Tsunade, and Sakura began to subconsciously adopt some of her master's mannerisms, these feelings would actually manifest through Sakura herself, in violent outbursts that would result in Naruto usually being hit for his foolish or perverted actions. Despite this, however, Inner Sakura will still manifest in some cases such as when Naruto mouthed off to Tsunade. She disciplined him before Tsunade could, noting how fearsome Tsunade could be in cases such as those. Appearance Haruno sakura part1.png|Sakura's initial appearance in Part I. Sakura Part I Full Short Hair.png|Sakura with short hair in Part I. Sakura has bright pink hair, large green eyes, and fair skin. Sakura was often bullied due to her rather large forehead hence her nickname of "Billboard Brow", due to this she wore her bangs over her forehead in an attempt to cover it, though Ino encouraged her to wear her hair back, claiming that it would draw out the cuter part of her forehead . In Part I, Sakura wore a red qipao dress with white circular designs, with or without short sleeves, with a zipper, tight dark green shorts, standard ninja sandals, and a forehead protector which she used to accentuate her face. In the beginning she had long hair, but due to events ocurred in the Chūnin Exams, she was forced to cut it. She wore it short for a long time, until she decided to let it grow again in her adulthood. In Part II, Sakura has donned an attire that consisted of a red top with the same design as the upper-half of her Part I outfit, with black gloves, black, low-heel, calf-high boots, black shorts underneath a short grey apron skirt, and grey elbow protectors (her skirt and elbow protectors are pink in the anime). The metal portion of her forehead protector had moved to a red cloth. Sakura was also armed with a tantō which she wore above her medical pouch. When she was not on a mission, she wore her regular red sleeveless shirt, with a light yellow short sleeve shirt under it, and a navy-coloured skirt. During the Fourth Shinobi World War, she donned the standard uniform of her village inclusive of a Konohagakure flak jacket, albeit opting to wear a skirt instead of pants and her regular boots. She later changed her skirt to pants to assist the medic unit. During the battle against the Ten-Tails, having stored up chakra for over three years, Sakura obtained a rhombus mark on her forehead similar Tsunade's, known as the Strength of a Hundred Seal. Another notable trait of Sakura's appearance is her hair. At the series' beginning, Sakura's hair was very long (when she was young, there was a rumour that Sasuke was attracted to girls with long hair). After Sakura began to protect the unconscious bodies of Sasuke and Naruto after their battle with Orochimaru, Tsuchi Kin grabbed Sakura's hair and taunted her for paying more attention to her appearance than practising her technique. Kin kept Sakura captive, holding her tightly by the hair and forcing her to watch Abumi Zaku attack Lee. This caused Sakura to cut her hair to release Kin's hold on her, and determinedly attacking Team Dosu with a new goal of surpassing her team-mates, Naruto, Haru and Sasuke. Her hair was very short and messy that time. After the battle, Ino cuts Sakura's hair to make it neater. During the time she trained with Tsunade after the Chūnin Exams, she had let her hair grow back but has since then cut it again in favour of her new, shoulder-length hairstyle. Like Shizune, she also has the tendency to pin her hair up in a ponytail when working. Two years after the Fourth Shinobi World War, Sakura, at age 19, retained her short hairstyle, though cutting it even shorter this time now reaching around her chin, with her bangs now parted to the left keeping it out of her eyes, and her usual red cloth forehead protector worn as a hairband. She now wears a sleeveless red qipao dress that reaches her upper thighs, with white trimmings and a white circular design on the back similar to her Part I attire. It is tied with a black obi and she wears black shorts underneath as well as her usual black gloves and pink elbow protectors, which she now also wears as knee protectors. She has also changed her previous boots to regular black, high heeled ninja sandals. While off-duty, she wears a small, bottom-up sweater under a larger cream sweater with a pale yellow neckline and white capri pants as well as pink, strappy high heeled sandals. She also wears a dark red hairband, in the place of her usual red forehead protector, along with a pendent hung around her neck, half-hidden underneath her sweater. She is also seen wearing a red winter over-coat that falls to her mid thighs, with pink trimmings and pockets and a hood with white fur trim. Several years later, Sakura's attire consists of a standard blue Konoha uniform shirt and a skirt of the same color, a green flak jacket, a red forehead protector worn as a headband, black boots and a red armband with an Uzumaki crest over her left bicep. She also wears a fishnet underneath her shirt and skirt and let her hair grow long again, with her bags parted to the left and two red hairclips. Abilities At the start of the series, Sakura's overall abilities as a ninja were considerably less than those of her team-mates: Naruto, Sasuke and Haru, with her greatest strength being her intelligence. However during her fight with Ino, her sensei Hatake Kakashi commented on how capable Sakura was and how much potential she had. Sakura was able to develop this potential in her two-and-a-half years of training with Tsunade, greatly increasing her abilities to the point that she could hold her own against powerful enemies such as Sasori. Her skills in other areas have also increased, such as being able to locate Kakashi during the second bell test — something Naruto could not do — as well as tricking Sai, Kiba, and Lee into fighting each other so that she could put them all to sleep. Along with physical abilities, Sakura has also inherited her master's resilience and contempt for losing. This was best displayed after she had been surrounded by a cloud of poison, and used an explosive tag to dispel the cloud of smoke without sustaining much damage herself. She was even able to push herself to keep fighting during her battle with Sasori despite being poisoned and survive the poison long enough for Chiyo to heal her after Sasori's defeat. Late into the Fourth Shinobi World War, Sakura's refined abilities have proven her to be a possible equal to Tsunade, earning her praise from Senju Hashirama, Shizune, and Uzumaki Naruto. Chakra Control Soon after the start of their first mission, Sakura discovered that she had an excellent control over her chakra, and as such she had an innate ability to use techniques to their maximum efficiency without wasting any chakra. Kakashi pointed out that her ability to gather chakra from every part of the body and then using it with great timing made her superior to her team-mates in that respect. Her control has been noted multiple times as very similar to the prowess of Tsunade. Even Shizune, a fellow student of Tsunade's, admitted to Sakura's control being much greater than hers. While this particular ability was never put to great use in Part I, her chakra control became a focal point of Sakura's fighting style and medical abilities in Part II. With her excellent chakra control, she was chosen in sealing the Three-Tails with the Four-Corner Sealing Barrier along with Shizune, Ino and Haru. Due to these same skills, Sakura has been noted to have a natural aptitude for genjutsu, though thus far she has only been seen dispelling it. She was amongst the few skilled shinobi who successfully detected, and dispelled Kabuto's sleep-inducing genjutsu and helped Naruto out of it. Before the Chūnin Exams, a disguised Iruka conducted a test on her, trying to trick her into not participating in the exams, by using genjutsu, which she recognised in an instant, noting Sasuke would never ask her out, playing along to find out who cast the genjutsu. She was also able to decipher at the start of the Chūnin Exams that they were trapped in a surrounding-altering genjutsu. The pinnacle of her control was seen during the Fourth Shinobi World War; for over three years, she has stored up massive amounts of chakra on a point on her forehead and developed the Strength of a Hundred Seal and the ability to release it. She was also able to use the Ninja Art Creation Rebirth — Strength of a Hundred Technique in battle after releasing the seal. Furthermore, Sakura has shown the ability to transfer the chakra directly from her seal into other individuals, leading to her Strength of a Hundred markings to spread over the recipient. The chakra stored inside Sakura's seal is so enormous that she could distribute it to the alliance through Katsuyu on a massive scale and use it to regenerate after being impaled by Madara's black metal rod, without feeling any fatigue of physical repercussions. Afterwards, she powered several of Obito's Kamui techniques in order to move between Ōtsutsuki Kaguya's various dimensions, and still had leftover chakra in her seal to spare. Taijutsu Although not known for her strength in Part I, Sakura was still strong enough to knock Ino several metres backwards with only a single strike during their match in the Chūnin Exams. During a mission to the Land of Tea, she was seen breaking off the mast of a ship and using the large wooden log as a weapon. In Part II, Sakura's taijutsu skills had tremendously grown thanks to Tsunade's training. By building up and releasing her chakra with precise timing, Sakura can easily demolish or destroy objects with powerful punches or kicks. An opponent struck by her could suffer a blunt-force-trauma resulting in broken bones, ruptured organs, or even death as shown when she attacked Fuen with a single punch in the gut, crushing her into the ground with the impact killing Fuen instantly. Through repeated use, Sakura no longer needs to put any conscious effort into using this strength, and so can use it instantly. Her strength, coupled with her medical expertise and the beauty she gained over the time skip, had caused many to see Sakura as a younger version of Tsunade, or even someone who could surpass Tsunade. During her battle with Sasori, Sakura's new-found strength was enough to knock away the giant constructs created by the Iron Sand Gathering Assault technique. She was also able to lift a boulder nearly twice her size, throw the Lion-Headed Kannon with enough force and speed that it caught Sasori by surprise, and stop an airborne Sasori from reaching his target, later smashing his body to pieces. During the Fourth Great Shinobi War, Sakura's strength was great enough to completely immobilise a transformed White Zetsu Army clone, which are extremely durable, with just one blow.She was able to lift a chunk off the ground to protect herself from Obito's attack manifested by the Ten-Tails using Wood Release: Cutting Technique. After completing the Strength of a Hundred Seal, Sakura's strength grew tremendously to the point she could decimate several dozen of the Ten-Tails' spawns with ease, while obliterating the battlefield surrounding them. This feat gained praise from Senju Hashirama himself, who noted that Sakura's strength may be more fearsome than that of Tsunade's. This was demonstrated when she was able to injureKaguya Ōtsutsuki, even knocking one of her rabbit ear-like horns right off her head.[45] Another key component of Sakura's fighting style is her evasive skill. As a field medic, she cannot afford to be gravely injured or killed on the battle field, as drilled into her by Tsunade when she trained her. Sakura would attempt to read an opponent's fighting style in order to find the dominant hand/foot or anything that the enemy was using. With that, she could increase her evasive skill to impressive levels. Sakura was proficient enough in this that she could figure out Sasori's finger movements and predict the movements of his puppets. Sakura's skill in evasion is so great that she can completely evade a barrage of poisoned senbon, a multitude of puppet arms, and defeat one hundred puppets without a single scratch. Chiyo aided Sakura in evading Sasori's attack at first, but later noted Sakura hardly needed her help after she learned to read his attack patterns.[46] Sakura also has fast reflexes as she was able to grab Obito and quickly move to a safe distance when he accidentally opened a portal to a sea of acid. These keen reflexes were also shown when Kaguya launched her extremely fast chakra arms at Sakura, who was able to react fast enough to safely avoid its grasp before being saved by Kakashi Hatake's Susanoo. Ninjutsu Medical Ninjutsu Sakura's naturally refined control of her chakra had been taken to new heights over the time skip, an ability utilised to its fullest by the training she had done with Tsunade. With her excellent chakra control, Sakura had turned into an excellent combat medical-nin, and had shown herself to be able to heal fatal injuries with relatively little effort, even when more experienced medics would deem it a lost cause. She also has shown extensive knowledge of poisons having been taught by her senior pupil Shizune — learning how to imbue weapons such as kunai, with poison. She also has an extensive knowledge of herbal medicines, surpassing even the knowledge of Chiyo, as well as other chemicals such as powerful sleeping gases taught to her by Tsunade. Her knowledge was great enough to withdraw Sasori's advanced poisondirectly from Kankurō's body, and use that as a base template to create multiple antidotes swiftly afterwards without even needing to reference a ratio table, a feat even Sasori, the poison's creator couldn't accomplish because even a hairline mistake would render the antitode ineffective and the fact Sunagakure had poor farmland, thus heavily reducing their ability to grow medicinal herbs. During her fight with Sasori, she was able to start healing herself even with a poisoned sword still lodged in her abdomen, which Sasori commended on. At the end of Part I, when Tsunade observed Sakura successfully heal a fish with the Mystical Palm Technique, Tsunade remarked that Sakura had come so far, and she hadn't seen such talent since Shizune. Sakura can also assist with autopsies, as seen when she and Shizune performed an autopsy on a White Zetsu during the Fourth Shinobi World War, and she has knowledge of cells and DNA. A few individuals have even commented that Sakura has the potential to one day rival Tsunade in terms of medical skill, and perhaps even surpass her given enough time, though at the time Sakura stated that Tsunade's skills are far greater than her own. Sakura has also proved capable of using a chakra scalpel in order to make incisions into flesh and perform surgery or very direct heart massage. By the time of the Fourth Shinobi World War, after completing the Strength of a Hundred Seal, Sakura is able to summon Katsuyu and remotely heal others, which Shizune praises her for. Upon the release of the seal, she, along with Tsunade, summoned a large proportion of Katsuyu to heal the alliance and according to Tsunade, they would be able to recover just by standing on her. Sakura has also shown to be able to release the seal completely, granting her the ability to heal any damage she sustains. During her fight against Madara, she was able to instantly heal even the damage done to her by a staff created from his Truth-Seeking Ball. Summoning Technique During Fourth Great Ninja War, Sakura showed herself to be able to summon Katsuyu onto the battlefield. By having the slug divide and attach themselves to the wounded individuals, like Tsunade, Sakura was capable of healing multiple injuries at different locations simultaneously. Shizune noted that this was quite a feat as it was the first time that Sakura had summoned Katsuyu. Nature Transformation Sakura is also proficient with four nature transformations, Earth Release, Water Release, Yin Release and Yang Release. Senjutsu A few years after the Fourth Shinobi World War, despite naturally not having large chakra reserves, the chakra reserved in her Strength of a Hundred Seal and her excellent control of chakra allowed her to be taught by Katsuyu how to use senjutsu in the Shikkotsu Forest, enabling her to gather natural energy to augment her techniques and strength. Through arduous training, Sakura finally becomes able to use the highest level of senjutsu to access a perfect Sage Mode, demonstrated by the red markings around and under her eyes as well as one in the middle of his forehead reminiscent of a third eye. The only issue of it would be that it required the user to be perfectly still to gather the natural energy, but due to Sakura's natural mastery in chakra control, she could achieve this faster than usual. Intelligence Sakura's original defining characteristic was her intelligence, as seen with her consistently high test scores while in the Academy. Sakura has a keen talent for observation and analysing, which she uses to overcome most forms of deception. Moreover, in the first phase of the Chūnin Exams, Sakura was able to answer all the questions on the paper test quickly, even though the examiner Morino Ibiki later commented that they were designed to be too difficult for a genin to answer, displaying her exceptional scholastic aptitude. Sakura could also cleverly set traps, that could be triggered by herself to attack the opponent, and even use obvious traps as decoys to lead opponent's into other traps. However, Sakura's focus on her studies in the Academy greatly affected her physical performance. Her poor combat skills and stamina prevented her from being helpful during the earlier battles in the series. In Part II, along with her other attributes, Sakura's exceptional intelligence and keen observation skills also improved during her training with Tsunade, who taught her to read and decipher the attack patterns of her enemies and act accordingly. As a result, she could now read complex patterns in her opponent's attacks, even opponents as strong as Sasori, a feat which even surprised an experienced war veteran like Chiyo. She got him to believe that the poison she received from him had affected her. When Sakura along with her team encountered Tobi and his technique, Sakura was able to assume its mechanism and deduce that Tobi was only pretending to be affected. Sakura is also shown to be skilled at planning, being able to formulate a plan to kill Sasuke by the use of a poison and prevent Kiba, Sai and Lee from following her by the use of a sleeping gas bomb. During the first night of the Fourth Shinobi World War had ended, when a spy had infiltrated the Logistical Support and Medical Division compound, Sakura was able to work out that the spy wasn't using theTransformation Technique as the sensors would've detected the spy. When having a talk with Neji, Sakura was able to deceive him and attack him while he was unprepared. She was able to extract information from the assassin and piece together the mechanics behind the enemy's abilities, using information she had come across previously, as well as what the clone told her. Despite having no apparent special ability to see through Genjutsu, Sakura's intellect has made her able to easily see through it with no apparent trouble. Even Sasuke, prior to the first stage of the Chunin Exam, admitted his ability to see through Genjutsu without his Sharingan is inferior to Sakura's. Trivia *The name "Haruno" means "spring field", and the name "Sakura" means "cherry blossom", a flower which is cherished in Japan due to its beauty and its almost-tragically short life span (cherry blossoms have historically been associated with the samurai). The cherry blossom also serves as the national flower for the nation of Japan. In Japanese, "Haruno Sakura" (春野・桜) means "spring field of cherry blossoms", which may be an origin of the name. It can be also used in the game, Hanafuda, as a month card of sakura (桜, flowering cherry). **Sakura's name, when read as "Haru no Sakura" (春の桜), can also be interpreted as "cherry blossoms in spring". *According to the databook(s): **Sakura's hobbies are playing trivia games and memorising new material for her medical studies. **Sakura wishes for a rematch with Ino. **Sakura's favourite foods are syrup-coated anko dumplings, umeboshi, and anmitsu, while her least favourites are anything spicy. **Sakura has completed 34 official missions in total: 12 D-rank, 9 C-rank, 6 B-rank, 7 A-rank, 0 S-rank. **Sakura's favourite phrase according to the first databook is "A life with love throughout!" (一生愛の人生よ!, Isshōai no jinsei yo!), and her favourite word according to the second and third databooks is "courage" (勇気, yūki). *Sakura's son, Menma, inherited her trademark phrase "Shānnarō!" (しゃーんなろー). Category:Characters Category:Haruno Clan Category:Allied Shinobi Forces Category:Konohagakure Category:Medical-Nin